


I call this Birds Backstory

by GodsHumbleClown



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Baby Boots, Baby Spot, Big Brother Skittery, But not in like a sexual way, Child Abuse, Foster Care, Kinda, Sad Ending, abusive shitty parents way, but not really if youve read the rest of them, forced eating, just like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28995162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodsHumbleClown/pseuds/GodsHumbleClown
Summary: A prequel to my absurdly long collection with the Hell titles.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: Take These Broken Wings





	I call this Birds Backstory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonofabreach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofabreach/gifts).



> This kinda has a sad ending, but only if you take it as a standalone thing, and not as a prequel to my Broken Wings series.  
> Spoiler Alert: they do all get their happy ending, eventually.

Skittery set the table in a house that wasn't his home, for a family that wasn't his. His family, in a sense, was two little boys around six years old who exclusively responded to the nicknames he'd given them. 

Boots carefully set cups out at the table, a task Skittery delegated to him because he knew the boy was steady, patient, and wouldn't break any glasses. 

Spot hovered right behind Skittery's leg, gripping a handful of forks and eyeing their foster mother suspiciously. 

She'd been in a sour mood all day, and none of them wanted to risk notice with too much noise. 

The “real” Hilger children, Gloria and Abram, knew they were perfectly safe. Those two absolutely did not care what happened to Skittery, Spot, or Boots, though they had outright disliked Robbie. Skittery also outright disliked Robbie, but he didn’t try to get Robbie thrown out like they did. Robbie could do that on his own, the stupid creep.  
Skittery shook his head free of those thoughts and went back to setting the table for dinner. 

“Boy, what are you doing?” Skittery cringed, Boots nearly dropped a cup, and Spot scowled at the floor. Skittery really hoped he'd get out of that mood before dinner. Grouchiness was not good, not in this house. 

“Nothing, ma’am. Setting the table. Got hair in my eyes.” 

Mrs. Hilger accepted the answer without any more fuss, thank goodness. She'd probably want to cut his hair at some point, if she remembered the conversation. Skittery really hoped she forgot. 

* * *

Dinners at the Hilger home were always painfully, awkwardly quiet. Skittery cut Spot's chicken into little cubes so he wouldn't make a gigantic mess, but other than that, they could have all been in separate boxes for all the interaction they had. 

Mrs. Hilger got to her feet to putter around by the sink, clattering dishes and silverware and providing background noise that made the experience almost bearable. 

Mr. Hilger broke the relative silence, surprising everyone. He pointed his fork at Spot. "Don't be wasting good food, boy." 

Spot stopped pushing his barely eaten food around his plate and frowned, kicking his short little legs under the table. Skittery desperately hoped he wouldn't kick Mr. Hilger by accident. 

“I’m not hungry,” Spot insisted. Skittery tapped his foot on the floor. _Stop it, Spotty,_ he wanted to beg. _Just eat anyway._ But that was too much to expect from a six year old. Mrs. Hilger flicked him across the nose, and Spot cowered, still glaring daggers up at the woman as he did. She moved to sit back down. 

“You finish what’s on your plate.”

Skittery saw the stubborn set of Spot’s jaw creep over the fearful expression, and his stomach flipped. _No, no, no._

Spot glared at the table. 

“I’m _not_ hungry.”

Yes, Spot was probably too old to keep throwing tantrums, but nothing _they_ did was any use to stop them. 

“Boy, if you don’t clean that plate, I’ll make you wish you’d never said “no” to me.” She pointed at Spot with a spatula. Skittery understood the warning there. Boots stabbed at his rice, pretending not to hear anything. He ate a carrot and stared at the floor. 

Spot looked from Mrs. Hilger, to the spatula, to his half-full plate, and then to Skittery. He wanted Skittery to fix it. Skittery’s hands shook so hard he nearly dropped his fork. 

Spot whined wordlessly. 

“I’m not _hungry!”_ He kicked the table leg, and that was enough for their “mother”. 

“Levi, spank him.” 

Skittery's fork clattered on his plate and he scrambled to pick it back up. 

Mr. Hilger moved to oblige his wife, and Spot cowered, immediately starting to tremble. Their foster father was no small man, and they all knew how strong he was. He also had no issue with spanking the children at the dinner table. Not _his_ kids, obviously. They could do no wrong, and just kept eating, taking turns kicking Boots under the table. 

Boots’ eyes glazed over and he continued eating like a robot. 

Mr. Hilger grabbed Spot by one skinny little wrist and dragged the struggling boy out of his chair and over his lap. 

_He's fine,_ Skittery told himself, even as the tiny boy yelped like a kicked puppy. Spot got to keep his pants on for this one, due to this being the dinner table, and Mr. Hilger wasn't wearing a belt at the moment. Just his hand. Everything was going to be alright. 

_Wait it out._

Skittery focused on not vomiting as Spot squealed and kicked. A tiny little six year old couldn’t do _shit_ against a grown man, except maybe make him angrier. Skittery wanted to cover his ears and eyes, to curl up and hide, but that would end so, _so_ badly. 

Spot started to cry for real, but he still kept fighting. That just made things _worse_. He should know that by now.

“Wait,” Skittery blurted out after what couldn’t have been more than three seconds of punishment. Everyone looked at him, including Boots. He hadn't meant to shout, but at least it got Mr. Hilger to stop his spanking. Spot whimpered, a little squirm earning him one swift smack that made Skittery jump. Other than that, the kitchen was terrifyingly quiet. 

Mr. Hilger looked at him expectantly, and Skittery felt like his tongue was swelling up. He hated attention from Mr. Hilger more than anything in the world. Mrs. Hilger was bad enough; the man hardly paid any of the foster kids even the barest amount of attention. If he took notice, you were about to get beat. 

_Talk, stupid, or he'll start over again._  
“I can finish his food, please, just… let him go.” 

For some reason, that _worked._ Spot was released and immediately deposited none too gently back into his chair. He wiped his tears away and gave Skittery a grateful look. Skittery both loved and hated that look. 

He started eating the leftover food as quickly as possible. 

Why couldn’t he be Spot’s hero for normal reasons? Normal brothers were the hero because they could play baseball well, or swing the little ones up onto their shoulders, or protect them from bullies.

Skittery could do all of those things, but the bullies just so happened to be their parents. 

"Parents." That was a joke.

Skittery also wasn’t very good at protecting them sometimes. 

Spot wiggled in his seat, but stopped when Mrs. Hilger gave him a _look_. He wouldn't be allowed to leave until everyone finished, of course, and his backside was probably sore again. That wasn't the worst he'd ever gotten by a long shot, but still. Mr. Hilger never did anything halfway. 

This was entirely too much food. 

Spot was so tiny, and he ate like a bird. Good thing Skittery was what his real mother had always described as “her growing garbage disposal.” 

And she’d ruffle his hair, and Sebby would laugh, and everything was great for a little while. But he wasn’t Sebby anymore. He was Skittery, because apparently jumpiness counted as a personality trait. It wasn’t like the Hilgers ever bothered to use names. They were all just _boy, brat, you, stupid._ Skittery was usually “stupid.”

Glum and dumb, Robbie liked to call him. Robbie went and got himself sent to juvie, which sounded like a pretty good plan, were it not for Skittery’s refusal to leave Spot and Boots alone. 

Spot was _the little rat_ more often than not. That and the general _boy_ that they all got. 

Mrs. Hilger put more food on Skittery's plate, and he tried not to gag. Right about now, he had every right to be glum, and it wasn’t like a guy could help being dumb. 

Skittery forced himself to eat anyway. He’d have eaten worms if it would keep the little ones safe. 

Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. He'd rather not eat worms. 

* * *

Skittery never wanted to eat chicken again. After about six full plates of food, he felt awful, but that wasn’t something you showed if you wanted to keep attention away. Skittery still got the little ones to clear the table, more subdued than usual after all that fuss at dinner. He loaded the dishwasher, put the few leftovers that he hadn’t been forced to choke down into tupperwares, and herded Spot and Boots into his bedroom to find something quiet to do. 

They’d have two hours of peace before they had to go back downstairs to pray and listen to Mr. Hilger read from the bible before bed, and Skittery liked to make this time something good for the two younger boys. 

He locked the door and tugged his toys shoebox out from under the bed. Matchbox cars weren’t much, but they were cheap, and made Spot and Boots happy. 

Skittery tugged out his homework as the two pushed tiny wheels along the carpet, making quiet beeping, crashing, engine noises. The stomachache was soon joined by a headache as Skittery struggled through his English assignments. 

_Stupid, lazy boy. I’ll teach you._

He shuddered and tried to focus. Skittery wasn’t _stupid._ The words swam in front of his eyes, jumbling up and switching letters around into illegible alphabet soup across the page. 

_Charity case. Nobody wants an idiot._

An idiot wouldn’t know how to keep a lit firecracker like Spot from getting himself skinned alive in this house, and Stupid wouldn’t have scratched and clawed out a C-plus in math last semester. 

_Not having any failures in my house._

Or maybe it would, and Skittery was just too stupid to know that. 

* * *

Skittery tucked Spot and Boots into bed that night before he headed to his room. For now, he was alone, seeing as his roommate was currently _incarcerated._ That was definitely a benefit. Robbie always seemed to take such joy in getting Skittery in trouble. 

He’d try with Spot too, but that was too easy. The kid had such a short fuse, he already got his ass beat pretty much daily. Boots was damn near impossible to cause trouble with, he was so quiet and closed off. He shut down when anything bad happened, sometimes taking Skittery hours to pull him out of whatever happy little world he’d wandered off into. 

Skittery handed the little boy his rain boots. Weird comfort object, but Skittery wasn’t about to take it away. Boots mumbled something resembling “thanks” and then drifted off to sleep, holding the ratty old shoes to his chest. 

Spot was still sitting up, watching. He swayed a little, starting to nod off. “Skitty, my stomach hurts.” 

Skittery frowned and touched his forehead, ignoring the fact that his own stomach was not particularly happy right now. 

“You don’t have a fever. Let’s get you to sleep, I bet you’ll feel better in the morning.”

Spot nodded sleepily, settling back into his pillow. Skittery tugged up his blanket around his skinny little shoulders, stroking Spot’s hair gently as the kid got comfy. 

“Thanks, Skittery,” Spot mumbled, curling tight. “Don’t like mister… mister… him. Hits me. Don’t-” he yawned. “Don’t like him.”

“Me either, Spotty,” Skittery smiled sadly. “Only a couple more years, yeah? And then I’ll get you and Boots both out of here.” Spot smiled, nuzzling into his pillow.

“Yeah.” 

Skittery ruffled his hair. "'Night Spot."

"Night Skitty."

Skittery was halfway out the door when that little voice piped up again. 

"I love you." 

He froze. That wasn't a comment he could ignore or brush off. Couldn't pretend like it wasn't important, because _I love you_ was important to a six year old. It wasn't important to Skittery. It couldn't be. If it were, he'd just die. 

"I… I love you too, Spot."

And he meant it, Skittery realized, shutting the door behind him. He loved both of those kids, and he _would_ make sure they got out of here. They'd get something better.

He'd make sure of it. 

Skittery shut the door to his own room softly behind him and pulled out his other shoebox, tucked behind the matchbox car one. 

This one was full of photographs, crappy, Walgreens disposable camera quality photos, labeled neatly with dates, names, and any other information he thought might one day be useful. 

Skittery's stomach and ribs, a mess of bruises, _September 13_ : _failed math test - belt & fists. _It was the first test of the semester, and already Skittery proved how stupid he was. 

A raised burn on Boots' wrist, _July 4: scared of fireworks - held sparkler on skin._

Mrs. Hilger had just been evil that day, burning a little kid like that. He didn't even cry, just went silent for three days straight. It took Skittery a week to get Boots to sleep in his own bed after that. 

Spot's tiny little hands and feet, blue and chapped from the cold, _February 23: talking back - locked outside in snow. 2 hours, No shoes._

He'd cried half the night after that, curled up in Skittery's bed, terrified, and still shivering for hours. That was the scariest night of Skittery's life. He couldn't sleep, so worried that he might wake up and Spot would be dead from the cold. 

The younger two didn't really understand why Skittery had wanted to take those pictures, but they let it happen. They didn't care, really, as long as it didn't hurt, and Skittery would never hurt them. 

He really hoped the disposable cameras he'd managed to scrape up were worth the money. Hoped this would be enough proof to get the little ones away for good. Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't, so he couldn't risk showing them to anybody until he was already leaving. If he got kicked out, and this didn't work…

Skittery looked back at his photos and swallowed hard. 

Just a few years and he'd be eighteen, and he could adopt them and they'd all be fine, whatever happened. Skittery could support them. He'd done it all this time. 

It would work. He'd make sure of it. 

It had to. 


End file.
